Abstract

Quantifying the impact of scientific research is almost always controversial, and
there is a need for a uniform method that can be applied across all fields. Increasingly,
however, the quantification has been summed up in the impact factor of the journal
in which the work is published, which is known to show differences between fields.
Here the h-index, a way to summarize an individual's highly cited work, was calculated
for journals over a twenty year time span and compared to the size of the journal
in four fields, Agriculture, Condensed Matter Physics, Genetics and Heredity and Mathematical
Physics. There is a linear log-log relationship between the h-index and the size of
the journal: the larger the journal, the more likely it is to have a high h-index.
The four fields cannot be separated from each other suggesting that this relationship
applies to all fields. A strike rate index (SRI) based on the log relationship of
the h-index and the size of the journal shows a similar distribution in the four fields,
with similar thresholds for quality, allowing journals across diverse fields to be
compared to each other. The SRI explains more than four times the variation in citation
counts compared to the impact factor.